During the National Day holiday in 2026, facing the characteristics of concentrated release of residents' travel and increasingly diversified consumer demand, China UnionPay closely follows the national strategic deployment of "expanding domestic demand and promoting consumption", fully leverages the role of the payment industry as a "hub" and "connector", coordinates domestic and foreign resources, connects all parties in the industry, takes payment services as the entry point, extends the tentacles of financial inclusiveness to key areas of the real economy such as cultural and tourism travel, livelihood consumption, trade in, cross-border shopping, etc. With a series of solid and effective measures, it injects strong momentum into the heating up of the consumption market during the National Day holiday.

Expand the scene, strengthen linkage, and connect the anime ticket stub with the new link of cultural tourism consumption

Cultural and tourism consumption is the highlight of the holiday economy and a key factor in testing the recovery of the consumer market. In the trend of cultural and tourism consumption during the holiday season, UnionPay is not simply offering discounts, but using a "one game" approach to build an "ecosystem" of government enterprise collaboration, accurately embedding payment services into every aspect of travel, focusing on the entire chain of "food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping, and entertainment" for tourists, tailoring an integrated service system for the benefit of the people, and activating the overall vitality of the holiday economy.

On the supply side, UnionPay will accurately embed discounts into key nodes of the consumer chain. Targeting different customer groups during the National Day holiday, United Airlines, hotel groups, and travel platforms have launched instant discounts and promotions in areas such as ticket booking, hotel accommodation, high-speed rail ticketing, and self driving taxis.

On the demand side, UnionPay focuses on creating distinctive IPs and attracting young fans through the innovative model of "payment+culture and sports". UnionPay has deeply bound the payment tool with the cultural IP, dug deep into the ticket economy and anime consumption potential, opened the link from one ticket stub to one city consumption, focused on the interests and travel needs of young customers, combined ticket stub rights and payment preferences, and connected the whole consumption scene. In the anime event of Redland in Shanghai Fuxing Island, users can upload electronic ticket stubs to draw a lottery for "travel, purchase, travel and entertainment" coupons in Shanghai, and can also get food and beverage shopping coupons through the exclusive cloud flash payment page. The event links more than 150 merchants in the area, making the tickets a diversified consumption entrance; UnionPay will also extend its youth oriented layout to the daily cultural and creative field, jointly launching the "Boundless Building Children's School Season" activity with Jiumu Miscellaneous Society, relying on Boundless AI to create online interactive gameplay and offline check-in experience for more than 800 stores nationwide, enriching young people's leisure consumption choices, and driving the surrounding consumption heat with the high popularity of cultural and entertainment activities. This series of layouts not only provides tourists with tangible convenience, but also drives the overall recovery of destination catering, retail, cultural and creative industries through passenger flow, effectively transforming cultural and tourism "traffic" into consumption "increment".

Benefiting people's livelihoods, promoting circulation, and building a solid "ballast stone" for people's consumption

If cultural and tourism consumption is the increment of the holiday economy, then people's livelihood consumption is the cornerstone supporting market stability. UnionPay's consumer promotion campaign did not stop at the tourism scene, but simultaneously turned its attention to the "daily necessities" and daily life of urban residents. UnionPay extensively collaborates with chain pharmacies such as Dachanlin and Haiwang Xingchen, as well as more than 500 tertiary hospitals and convenience stores across the country, covering high-frequency life scenarios such as community retail, catering and tea drinks, and nighttime economy with discounts. This strategy of emphasizing both "big and comprehensive" and "small and beautiful" not only meets the needs of residents for upgrading their quality, but also covers daily small expenses, truly achieving the word "universal" and further consolidating the stable operation of the consumer market.

Of particular note is that during the National Day holiday, UnionPay continued to implement the national policy of "exchanging old for new consumer goods" and played an irreplaceable role as an "enabler". Faced with many pain points in subsidy application, verification, and fund monitoring, UnionPay has built an efficient and transparent trade in platform to ensure that policy dividends accurately reach consumers, effectively leveraging bulk consumption such as home appliances and digital products, and bringing real benefits from "paper" to "hands", achieving a two-way rush between improving people's livelihoods and boosting industries.

Crossing mountains and seas, connecting the world, building a "payment bridge" for internal and external circulation

While deeply cultivating the domestic market, China UnionPay has seized the opportunity of the concentrated release of cross-border travel and consumer demand driven by the long holidays, expanding its vision of promoting consumption to a global scale. Faced with the two-way active trend of inbound and outbound consumption during the National Day holiday, UnionPay International continues to carry out the "UnionPay Super Exchange Rate Subsidy" activity until October 12th. Domestic UnionPay cardholders who meet the conditions can enjoy exchange rate discounts for offline consumption in designated overseas areas; Industrial Bank, Guangfa Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and other cooperative banks have launched designated UnionPay card overseas consumption cashback rights, enriching the overseas consumption discount matrix. UnionPay has created an integrated overseas consumption ecosystem of "food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment", upgrading cross-border payments from "usable" to "easy to use and affordable", bringing considerable incremental transactions to cooperative banks and overseas merchants.

While exporting services to the outside world, UnionPay also actively attracts traffic from within.

On the one hand, relying on the "Jinxiu Action 2026" to continuously upgrade the payment acceptance environment, providing one-stop entry services through the NihaoChina APP, supporting multiple payments such as UnionPay cards, mobile PAY, and cloud flash payment APP, and implementing dual channels of "buy and refund" and "departure tax refund". At the same time, in order to better serve inbound shopping and sightseeing, we will launch in store consumption discounts for UnionPay cards issued overseas. According to UnionPay data, daily necessities, catering, and entertainment have become the most consumed areas for overseas visitors to China.

On the other hand, in terms of regional collaboration, the "Play and Earn in the Greater Bay Area" section of the Cloud QuickPass APP brings together the dining, transportation, cultural tourism, and shopping rights of Guangdong, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Macao regions. Users who use the Cloud QuickPass APP to make purchases at designated offline merchants in Guangdong can accumulate the number of transactions that meet the standard according to the rules and receive instant discount coupons. Mainland users who meet the standard for 7 transactions also have the opportunity to receive a 2026 yuan consumption red envelope; The special zone has launched a 50% discount on weekend rides around designated bus, subway, and cross-border transportation routes in the Greater Bay Area, providing more choices for residents of the three regions to travel across cities and during off peak hours. Residents of Hong Kong and Macau who meet the requirements can also apply for the Guangdong Digital Home Appliance Trade in National Subsidy through the Cloud QuickPass APP, sharing the policy dividends. This measure not only allows compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao to share the benefits of national policies, but also serves as a model for UnionPay to leverage its cross-border network advantages and accurately connect overseas customers with domestic physical merchants. Through the two-way connection between domestic and foreign resources and customer groups, a dual cycle consumption ecology with payment as the connection is integrated.

According to cross-border data from China UnionPay Cloud QuickPass during the 11th National Day holiday, domestic users using Cloud QuickPass for outbound consumption increased by 41% year-on-year, while overseas visitors to China achieved a 113% year-on-year increase in consumption through Cloud QuickPass and NihaoChinaAPP related services.

Being a long-term 'enabler' of serving the real economy

During the National Day holiday, UnionPay used payment as a link to connect various consumer scenarios and activate market momentum. From cultural and tourism travel to people's livelihood consumption, from trade in to cross-border consumption, from offline business districts to online platforms, UnionPay has provided consumers with tangible discounts, and has also built an effective empowerment platform for physical retail, cultural and tourism, catering and other formats, breaking down scene barriers with "smoothness", connecting various resources with "integration", and activating consumption potential.

In the future, UnionPay will continue to adhere to the original intention of "payment for the people", continuously leverage the efficiency of payment infrastructure, and link various parties in the industry with a more open attitude to iterate and benefit the rights and interests of the people, making "smooth" and "integrated" more active - injecting strong and lasting financial power into expanding domestic demand, stabilizing growth, and promoting consumption, and becoming a long-term "enabler" of serving the real economy.